 | Fantasy and Passion |  |
TO AN OLD STREET-LAMP.
I watch thee now, with meditative mood,
In the old street, noiseless under midnight's spell,
Whereof through many a midnight hast thou stood,
Poor flickering lamp, the yellow sentinel.
Thine humble flame no rivalry invites;
More than thyself thou dost not care to seem;
Thou art not of the world's most shining lights,
Yet what thou art is of benignant beam!
In the old street, noiseless under midnight's spell,
Whereof through many a midnight hast thou stood,
Poor flickering lamp, the yellow sentinel.
Thine humble flame no rivalry invites;
More than thyself thou dost not care to seem;
Thou art not of the world's most shining lights,
Yet what thou art is of benignant beam!
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Harsh gusts that haughtiest waves have reared and rocked,
Sweeping the untraversed street with lonely roar,
Have paused amid their savage speed and knocked
With frigid knuckles at thy glassy door.
Half draped in snow-drift thou hast burned obscure;
Innumerous rain-streaks thy dull panes have crost,
And cold has vestured thine uncouth contour
In pale fantastic filigrees of frost!
Sweeping the untraversed street with lonely roar,
Have paused amid their savage speed and knocked
With frigid knuckles at thy glassy door.
Half draped in snow-drift thou hast burned obscure;
Innumerous rain-streaks thy dull panes have crost,
And cold has vestured thine uncouth contour
In pale fantastic filigrees of frost!
And ah, the uncounted faces thou hast lit,
Seen but by fleeting intervals before
Each into distance and the dark would flit,
Some to return again, and some no more!
The moneyed autocrat; the beggar meek;
The shambling rag-pick, half a man for mud;
The exhausted work-girl, on whose wasting cheek
Blooms the white flower that drinks the toiler's blood!
Seen but by fleeting intervals before
Each into distance and the dark would flit,
Some to return again, and some no more!
The moneyed autocrat; the beggar meek;
The shambling rag-pick, half a man for mud;
The exhausted work-girl, on whose wasting cheek
Blooms the white flower that drinks the toiler's blood!
The young bride, near her lord, all life at rest;
The expectant lover, speeding to his tryst;
The wearied house-drudge, with her babe at breast,
And forehead purpled from a brutish fist;
The ruminant poet, with his rusty coat;
The thief that shoots to covert in hot flight;
The reveller, flinging from audacious throat
A reckless dithyramb on the startled night!
The expectant lover, speeding to his tryst;
The wearied house-drudge, with her babe at breast,
And forehead purpled from a brutish fist;
The ruminant poet, with his rusty coat;
The thief that shoots to covert in hot flight;
The reveller, flinging from audacious throat
A reckless dithyramb on the startled night!
Theirs hast thou seen, and many another's face,
Since this thy special flame was called by fate
To illume, from its unclassic biding-place,
These stolid pavements' monochrome of slate.
For now the ladder that first scaled thine height
Is fallen, perchance, to utter rot and rust,
And doubtless the first hand that gave thee light
Knows now the unending quietude of dust!
Since this thy special flame was called by fate
To illume, from its unclassic biding-place,
These stolid pavements' monochrome of slate.
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Is fallen, perchance, to utter rot and rust,
And doubtless the first hand that gave thee light
Knows now the unending quietude of dust!
Hast thou not sometimes heard a bacchanal tongue
Pay thee sad slanders, worth no honest heed,
While arms about thy rigid pillar clung
With the fierce friendship of a friend in need?
Yet then, I doubt not, thou wert calm no less,
Though named unstable in delirious strain,
Too proudly conscious of thy steadfastness
For any answer but a dumb disdain!
Pay thee sad slanders, worth no honest heed,
While arms about thy rigid pillar clung
With the fierce friendship of a friend in need?
Yet then, I doubt not, thou wert calm no less,
Though named unstable in delirious strain,
Too proudly conscious of thy steadfastness
For any answer but a dumb disdain!
Patient and unpretentious, with the sweet
Desire alike to live for low and high,
Shine on, old lamp, within the shadowy street
Where fortune hath ordained thy lot to lie!
And mayst thou fade, when time at last shall tell
The gaseous ardor from thy pipe to cease,
Like one that having done his duty well
Sinks to oblivion with a brow of peace!
Desire alike to live for low and high,
Shine on, old lamp, within the shadowy street
Where fortune hath ordained thy lot to lie!
And mayst thou fade, when time at last shall tell
The gaseous ardor from thy pipe to cease,
Like one that having done his duty well
Sinks to oblivion with a brow of peace!
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